Residence of courtiers in the Ancien Rgime.

Typical for courtiers of the Ancien Rgime is that they at least the important ones had a apartment at Versailles (the house of the king) and a home, in most cases the Htel. The name of the home depends on your status. For example, the bourgeoisie lived in Mansions, nobility in Htels and princes and the king in a palais. Sometimes, the residence of a high clergy would be called a palais as well.

Besides that they would also have Chateaus, but we wont pay attention to that in this blog. Courtiers would have one of more estates which were their biggest part of the income.

Htel.

The porche would give access to visitors and carriages. In the hotel itself you would find:

Salons: In the middle would be one big salon which would take 2 floors high.

On one side of the big salon you would find the rooms of the appartement de societe which gave access to a antichambre, garderobe, sale de compagnie, dining room and so on. The appartement de socit would mostly be for close friends. They, mostly the wife, would go here to accompany friends in a relaxed way, so without the strict court-etiquette.

On the other side of the big salon you would find the appartement de parade, with parade-cabinets, parade-bedrooms and so on. The appartement de parade would be mostly for official occasions, like important people visiting their house or when people are congratulating the wife after she gave birth.

- Appartments priv: One would be on the left side and the other one on the right side of the big courtyard. They would be almost similar. Next to their bedroom would be a cabinet, antichambre and garderobe.

- Basse-Cour: The basse-cour was a small courtyard with around it buildings where the domestiques could do their work. Examples of those buildings/rooms are:

Stables.

Kitchen.

Laboratoire doffice (they would make ice there)

Garde-Manger (cold kitchen)

Office pare (where they would lock up the silverware)

Staff/domestiques:

The courtiers would have a lot of staff, in French called domestiques, in and around their htel. A few examples of the domestiques you would find in a htel:

Maitres dhtel: The maitres dhtel had the job to be in charge of the finances and supervise all the other domestiques.

Maitre dhtel: Supervises the domestiques and reports for example when dinner is starting.

Officier doffice: Was in charge of the people who were setting the table and the silverware (which was in the office pare).